Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Well, only one more week at the MTC, and things have been quite exciting lately. Last week for the 4th of july, at the end of the day we had an MTC fireside sort of thing to celebrate the holiday. There was some miscommunication, so everyone began to arrive in the auditorium about half an hour earlier than anticipated, so to kill time they had us sing some songs. We all sang happy birthday to a few people who's birthdays weren't too far away. After that, however, we sang "popcorn popping". That was quite the experience, to see 2,000 missionaries all standing up, singing popcorn popping, handmotions and all, and completely loving it. To top it all off, after we sang popcorn popping, the music director asked for suggestions. Wouldn't you know it, we ended up also singing the snowman song. Win. After the fireside, we were all instructed to go outside, and to "not return to the residency halls until after the final firework has been launched". So we all got to watch the firework show being launched from just a few blocks away at the BYU stadium. That was pretty cool. and to top it all off, after we returned to the residency halls at the end of the show, my room mates and I are in our room talking and getting ready for bed, and someone comes sprinting from around the corner, into our room (he has a hoody on and an improvised mask), jumps halfway across the room, turns a full 180 in the air, throws a fistfull of dryer sheets, sprays some airfreshener the instant he hits the ground, and is gone again all within literally about 3 seconds of us seeing him. I was impressed. And it was hilarious.

Other than that, it's just been a regular week... ok, it's been anything but regular. I'll be honest. We all have our flight plans now, so that's on everybody's mind. It's our last week at the MTC, so we're all trying to buckle down and finish all our last minute preperations before we head out but there's something irregular going on almost every day because of our preperations to fly out to Japan. I'm super excited. We've all been making leaps and bounds in our abilities to teach, and it's been quite amazing to see how much everyone has grown in just 10 weeks. Even though we're the same in alot of ways, we're a completely different group in many ways as well. It's exciting. I hope we can all hit the ground running when we get to Japan.

So, I have some pretty exciting news. Some Japanese broadcasting group is coming to the MTC tomorrow to do a kind of report of sorts on the MTC and the missionaries. It's going to be broadcast to 6 million viewers in England, and pretty much the entire country of Japan. Since it's a Japanese broadcasting group, they're obviously interested specifically in the missionaries going to Japan. Wouldn't you know it, but my district is the one they're going to observing and interviewing tomorrow. How cool is that? They're gonna make sure to send us links to the videos once they're broadcasted, and I'll be sure to get those links to you guys as well. It should be an interesting experience for sure.

That's about it for now. Things are gonna be kinda crazy the next few days, but it'll be fun. I'm not sure how next week is gonna work with getting an update to you all, seeing as how I'll be traveling pretty much all day monday, and because of the dateline I arrive in Japan Tuesday night. So, there may not be a blog post next week. We'll see how it goes. More to come later!